Comparative Analysis

Prices 2 from all 37 online Apple country stores for the Ipad 2, Macbook Air, ipod Touch, MacBook Pro and iMac were compared. Since the prices for some of the online country stores, such as the United States, do not include VAT, we compared the prices for each online country store both with and without VAT, based on each country’s tax rate 3.

Cheapest and Most Expensive Stores in the World

The cheapest online Apple store in the world is Malaysia. Its prices ranked the lowest when comparing prices both including and excluding VAT.

Five Cheapest Apple Country Stores (including taxes)

Apple stores in Brazil, Czech Republic and Thailand ranked as the three most expensive online Apple stores in the world. These online country stores ranked in the top three for most expensive prices both including and excluding VAT. The average prices excluding VAT for these three online country stores was 28 percent higher than the other online country stores.

Five Most Expensive Apple Country Stores (including taxes)

Most Expensive Store in Western Europe

Excluding VAT, the UK Apple Store is the most expensive online Apple store in Western Europe. The average price is three percent higher than the remaining Western European online country stores. When including VAT, only the Scandinavian countries (Norway, Denmark and Sweden), which maintain the highest tax rates in the world, have online Apple stores with higher prices. The average UK Apple store price is four percent higher than the non-Scandinavian Western European Apple stores. This means for an Apple product such as an iMac, British customers are paying on average £40 more.

GDP per capita (PPP) versus Apple Store Prices

Some of the online country stores with the most expensive prices seem odd at first glance. For example, the Czech Republic is a notorious tourist destination for the country’s comparatively cheap prices. Therefore, it’s quite alarming to see the Czech Republic rank as the most expensive online European Apple store.

Due to the surprising results, we compared the Apple store prices with a country comparison of GDP per capita at purchasing power parity (PPP) 4. According to the CIA’s The World Factbook, a country’s GDP at PPP is “the measure most economists prefer when looking at per-capita welfare and when comparing living conditions or use of resources across countries”. A country’s GDP at PPP is its GDP (i.e. value of all final goods and services produced within a nation in a given year) valued at prices persisting in the United States.

After taking into account each country’s GDP per capita at PPP, it is rather astonishing to see their contradiction with the Apple store prices. There are few countries whose Apple store price corresponds to the GDP per capita at PPP rank, such as Malaysia, Mexico and Indonesia. The remaining don’t relate at all, with some countries having fantastic deals and others being priced out almost entirely.

North America has two of the top Economy to Apple product price ratios in the world. The United States scores 5 second, behind only Singapore. Americans from Montana have it especially good, since there are no sales taxes in this state. The United States rank as the fifth best economy and have the fourth best Apple prices. Canada ranks as having the fourth best deal in the world, with the 11th best economy and the second cheapest Apple prices.

In Asia, Singapore and Hong Kong come out on top. Singapore ranks as the second best economy, while benefiting from the fifth cheapest prices on Apple products. Hong Kong has the sixth best economy and the third cheapest prices.

Worst Deals

The three online Apple country stores with the highest prices (Brazil, Thailand and Czech Republic), also have relatively weak economies and therefore rank as having the worst Apple deals in the world. Brazil is at the very bottom, combining the sixth poorest economy with the most expensive Apple prices. Thailand has the fifth poorest economy, but its online Apple store has the third most expensive prices. The Czech Republic has the worst deals in Europe, with the 12th poorest economy and the second most expensive prices.

The UK has the second worst deal in Western Europe and ranks as having the fourth worst deal in all of Europe.

The economies of Germany, Ireland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Austria and Switzerland all rank ahead of the UK, while their respective online Apple stores offer cheaper prices than that of the UK’s. The UK also ranks as having the worst deal of all the English speaking countries.

2 Prices were taken directly from the Apple Store websites of the respective countries on 14.12.2011. They were converted into USD, GBP and EUR currencies based on the exchange rate from 14.12.2011. The average price representing each store is the average price of all five Apple products offered at that store.

5 Scoring based on a points system where each of the 37 stores are ranked (1-37) and given points based on their economy and Apple product prices. The store offering the cheapest price receives 37 points, whereas the store offering the most expensive price receives 1 point. The store whose country has the best economy receives 37 points, whereas the store whose country has the worst economy receives 1 point. The stores with the most points have the best deals on the Apple Products.

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